In the pre-pandemic era, UMMC had an average of 30 nursing positions open at a given time. Over the last few years, that number has risen to more than 200. The hospital currently has 30 positions available in its adult hospital for respiratory therapy and 20 to 25 in its pediatric unit. 16 people applied for the job and 11 of them were hired immediately after the fair. All of the applicants accepted their job offers. Patrice Donald, a registered nursing manager at UMMC and clinical recruitment and retention manager, stated that the streamlined job fair process cut down on the time it took to hire. This was around 42 days. One of UMMC’s most recent hires is Abigail May from Madison. May will be graduating from UMMC’s Nursing School on May 27, and she will start her new job at the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit three days later. May stated that she is drawn to Mississippi because of her experiences at UMMC as both a patient and a student. May stated that she loves helping the sickest patients. “I feel like this is definitely my calling.” Mississippi lost over 2,000 nurses during the pandemic. This was due to burnout and higher-paying jobs in other states. Many of these jobs were in travel nursing. This strain is felt across the country and will only get worse. Additional challenges arise from an aging population. An older population means more people need health care services. However, it also decreases the number of registered nurses who are working as registered nurses. As more people retire from the workforce, this can lead to a reduction in the number of registered nurses. According to a McKinsey report, the United States could have between 200,000 and 450,000 less nurses than needed by 2025. To meet this demand, the number of nurses who graduate from nursing schools would have to increase by more than twice each year up to 2025. This issue was addressed with some funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, which included $40 million to support nurse training at colleges and universities as well as $6 million for student loan forgiveness. The effects of this investment will not be felt for some while and it does nothing to help hospitals that are in urgent need of nurses. It’s been difficult to recruit and retain when there are so many agencies out there that can offer them a lot of money to leave the country… I’d lie if I said I hadn’t received an email or phone call asking me what my interest was,” Gordon Gartrell (a nurse manager at UMMC’s pediatric intensive Care unit) said. Gartrell stated that UMMC is able to offer a competitive advantage over all other state health care providers because it houses the only children’s hospital in the state. Nelson Weichold (UMMC’s chief finance officer) addressed the issue of nursing shortage at a meeting of Institutions of Higher Learning’s Health Affairs Committee. According to Weichold, the labor costs of nurses have increased by 14% compared to the average revenue from all inpatient and outside services UMMC provides. Weichold also presented data obtained from Kaufman Hall & Associates, a health care management consulting firm. It showed a dramatic rise in national average contract nurse labor costs. Wage rates for contract nurses were nearly twice those of employed nurses before the coronavirus pandemic. Contract nurses made nearly four times as much as employed nurses by March 2022. Weichold stated that hospitals are being squeezed by rising labor costs and higher supplies costs. This is something that isn’t happening in other industries. In a way that hospitals cannot, airlines and fast food restaurants can pass on the increased costs to consumers, Weichold stated that this is not the case in the hospital sector. “We’re not charging customers, but we’re charging insurers.” “And the insurance company are very reticent now to increase hospital payments rates,” Weichold said. This has been happening openly in Mississippi for the past few months because of UMMC’s intense contract dispute against Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Mississippi’s largest private insurer. UMMC has approximately 3,000 nurses in its system. Around 100 of these are contract workers. Weichold stated that UMMC plans to increase nurse wages when it can eliminate contract nursing labor. Donald stated that nurses are required to perform their normal duties. However, they also have to be able to do “any other duties as assigned” in their job descriptions. This has been a great help during times of labor shortage. Nurses often move around between units. Tyler Fitzgerald, a nurse manager at UMMC’s transplant unit said, “We have nurses floating around everywhere.” “So we’ve managed. “So we’ve managed. Many were already working in other states during the pandemic. Now, they are leaving their jobs at one hospital to take up contract work at another in the same area. Weichold says that most UMMC nurses who go on contract work are back at the hospital in three to four months. Fitzgerald witnessed this trend firsthand. Fitzgerald stated that his team lost three nurses who were full-time during the pandemic, and they have just returned to UMMC. Fitzgerald stated, “We have people who leave and then return.” “Everybody always returns home.”